Fredrick D. Joe/The OregonianThe Thomas family of Portland includes two parents and nine children, including dad Paul (in Hawaiian shirt), mom Maiya (in black shirt), and kids (from left) Tare Mutepfa, 22; Tucker Thomas, 16; Noah Thomas, 22; and Zanele Mutepfa, 17. The family recently traveled to the African village where Paul Thomas grew up and where the Mutepfa children — adopted into the Thomas family after their parents died — spent part of their childhoods.Framed photographs of nine children fill the fireplace mantel. Some were born on one continent, some on another. But each face reveals that love, not blood, makes a family.

Now, thanks to trip halfway around the world, each member has a vivid understanding of how they came together -- how two generations of orphans were enfolded into the Thomas clan to create one unlikely family.

Paul Thomas, now a 52-year-old Portland pediatrician, grew up in the village of Arnoldine in Zimbabwe, one of four children of missionaries.

"We were the only white people in the village," Thomas says. "Authorities made my sister and I go to the white school in the city. But at night, I was with my African friends in the village."

A family next door helped raise the Thomas kids when their parents traveled to set up missions or were busy creating a village health clinic. "So in a sense, I had four parents."

After Thomas left to attend college in the United States, that second set of parents died in an accident, leaving five children. Thomas' parents adopted them. The family eventually moved to the East Coast, where Thomas grew close to his new siblings during visits home.

Thomas eventually settled in Portland, and in 2003, received an early-morning call: One of his African sisters had died of a heart attack in Manchester, N.H., where she had moved with her children after her husband died of cancer.

She left sons ages 12 and 15, an 11-year-old daughter and a daughter attending college in Tennessee. As orphans, the three younger children would become wards of the state or sent to relatives in Africa.

"I knew I had to do something," Thomas says. "If the girl went back to Zimbabwe, she'd work like a servant. That would have been her path."

The boys, Thomas knew, were a handful. They lived in a rough, poor section of Manchester and had been unsupervised because their mother worked three jobs and attended college full time.

But Thomas told his wife, Maiya, the children should be in a family -- their family. He wanted to adopt them and bring them to Portland. She agreed.

The Thomases already had five kids -- two adopted and three biological. The couple explained the situation to them. "We told them that everyone would be equal," Maiya Thomas says. "We said they'd be sharing everything. We'd be one family."

The children, too, agreed.

The couple completed piles of paperwork and remodeled their 2,100-square-foot Southwest Portland home, turning the garage into two bedrooms and a bathroom, and adding a bedroom in the attic.

Finding a place to sleep was one thing. Becoming a family was another.

"We'd just lost our mother," says Tare Mutepfa. "Then we come to this family. At first it was hard to believe in unconditional love. There was never one specific moment when I believed. It just evolved. I know now this is my family. I love my family."

Noah Thomas, 22, says he and his new brothers and sister were "punished the same and griped about the same things."

"We get mad at each other just like siblings," Mutepfa agrees. "But we never wished we had not come here."

Every night, the family gathered for dinner. "We joined hands for grace," Maiya Thomas says. "That created a sense of love and unity."

Still, the early years weren't always easy. "These kids had just lost their mother and were depressed," Paul Thomas says. "I must have spent two hours a night at the kitchen table after a long day in the office helping with homework. I wanted to connect with them and give them what they needed. My wife did little things to win them over. One kid was big and strong, but inside he was just a little kid."

One evening, one of the Mutepfa children said an adopted daughter who had recently moved out on her own was "not part of the family."

"I told him that she'd spent more time sitting at that table than he had," Thomas says. "I asked him how he'd feel if she said he wasn't really one of our kids. I told everyone at the table that we don't make any distinction among the children because of blood or why they joined our family.

"It hit him personally," Thomas says. "He got it."

Eventually, the Mutepfa children told the Thomases they wanted to legally make Thomas their middle name to honor the family.

It took until this past August to complete the circle, however.

The Thomases received an unexpected tax refund and decided to take the whole family, including children who had grown and moved away from Portland, back to the village in Zimbabwe. Only then, Paul and Maiya Thomas thought, could the family understand the true depth of their bonds.

After flying to Zimbabwe, they traveled 20 miles along a dirt road to reach the village, where about 50 families dwell in huts.

"There was no running water," Thomas says. "They had electricity, but it wasn't working. The kids took baths in the river. We slept in a hut with 30 other people. It was so crowded that you could barely roll over. But it was such a thrill.

"So many people were interested in us. We came from another world. Every single meal was ground corn meal made into a stiff mush with a vegetable. Because we were guests of honor, we got meat -- chicken or beef -- and that is very rare.

Daughter Zanele Mutepfa, 17, says the trip was emotional. She met people who knew her family and how they had lived.

"It opened my eyes to a life that I'm no longer a part of," she says. "I saw people who knew my parents and grandparents."

Noah Thomas says a villager asked how many cows he owns. "When I said none, he was baffled," Noah Thomas says. "He wanted to know where I got my food. Being there made all of us so grateful for what we have."

They were greeted by elders who still remembered Paul Thomas as a boy. Elders also told Thomas they had held the plot where he lived with his parents. The hut washed away decades ago, but the land, they insisted, is his.

"I was amazed and touched," he says.

Thinking about his past and his children's future, Thomas has decided to build a hut on the plot and bring in a social worker to help the villagers.

"My heart is in Africa in the sense that my formative years were spent in that village," he says. "While I have a full and wonderful life here, this seems to be an opportunity to tie my various lives together.

"I also have the hopes of continuing the growth of my children," he says. "I want them to understand the deeper meaning of life."